Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I present a copy of my ministerial statement. The Albanese government recognises the transformative benefits of early childhood education and care for children and families and for our nation. That's why we are working to build a universal early childhood education and care system that is accessible for families no matter what your circumstances or background.

I'm very proud of our record in early childhood education and care, of our work to build a quality universal system that is accessible, affordable and simple. Our Cheaper Child Care reforms made early learning affordable for more than one million Australian families by cutting out-of-pocket costs. Cheaper Child Care cut the cost of early learning by more than 17 per cent when it was first introduced, with the average family using childcare around $4,400 better off.

We know that we can't reach our vision for universal early childhood education and care without a strong and sustainable workforce. That's why we are delivering a historic 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood workers to retain and attract our early childhood education workforce. We're also boosting this vital and dedicated workforce through our successful fee-free TAFE program. As a result of Labor's reforms, there are over 1,100 new services since we came to government, 30 per cent of which are outside of major cities. There are 42,000 more educators and, most importantly, there are additional 97,000 more children in early childhood education and care.

But we want even more children to access and have access to high-quality early childhood education and care. Because we believe that every child has the right to get the best possible start in life, we've abolished the Liberals' prohibitive-activity test and replaced it with a three-day guarantee so children don't start school behind. The three-day guarantee will replace the current activity test from January 2026 with guaranteed eligibility for three days a week of subsidised early education for children who need it. We are also establishing a $1 billion building early childhood education fund and, through the fund, around 160 centres will be built and expanded in areas of need, including in the regions and outer suburbs. The fund will increase the availability of early childhood education and care for Australian families across the country delivered by quality not-for-profit providers.

As we continue to build the universal early childhood education and care system, we continue to ensure that children receive high-quality care with child safety and wellbeing at the core. As we build the universal system that our children deserve and that meets the needs of families, nothing is more important than making sure children are receiving high-quality early childhood education and care. Overwhelmingly, this is the case, with our children well looked after by dedicated professionals who care deeply about safety, child development and early education.

However, there are a small number of providers who are consistently and persistently failing to provide quality care and a safe environment. There is no room for this kind of behaviour in the early childhood education sector, and if you are persistently failing to meet minimum quality standards in delivering safe early childhood education and care, you should not have access to government funding and you should not be providing care. Now, while there are only a very small number of providers in the sector not behaving in line with our expectations, when it comes to child's safety, even one dodgy provider is too many. So today we are acting swiftly and decisively and we are sending a clear message to that small number of unscrupulous providers that, if you fail to provide quality care and a safe environment for children, you do not belong in early childhood education and care.

While state and territory governments remain responsible for ensuring services in their jurisdictions are operating within the National Quality Framework, the Albanese Labor government will continue to use our significant investment in the early childhood education sector as a lever to strengthen quality and integrity. Today I can announce that we can look to better leverage Commonwealth funding to drive quality and integrity in the early childhood education and care sector. We will work with the sector on the development of changes and how they could be implemented so that if a service provider persistently isn't meeting quality standards or has gross and egregious breaches under the education and care services national law, they will be prevented from opening new childcare subsidy approved services. Also, compliance action can be taken against providers that persistently fail to meet quality standards or repetitively breach the education and care services national law, including the possibility of cutting off access to government subsidies in serious cases.

We are putting a stop to providers that put profit ahead of the children they care for. We also want to ensure our wonderful early childhood educators and teachers are not being taken advantage of by the small number of providers who are doing the wrong thing, and we will look to strengthen our powers to crack down on dodgy providers that pose an integrity risk. We expect staff to be fairly compensated for the valuable work they do and we will take action against any provider that is not fairly paying their staff. We will make paying staff correctly and on time a condition of services to access childcare subsidy funding. We will also look to strengthen our powers to crack down on dodgy providers that pose an integrity risk to the childcare subsidy system. This includes conducting checks at childcare subsidy approved early childhood education and care services to confirm that children they are claiming funding for are actually attending the service. We'll give authorised officers more powers to be able to do their job by allowing them to perform spot checks and unannounced visits to detect fraud and non-compliance.

Unfortunately, we know that when a dodgy operator is detected and removed from one part of the national care economy they sometimes pop up as an operator in another care sector. To stamp this out, we'll investigate stronger cross-sector banning order arrangements to stop people who have breached safety and quality standards in one part of the care economy from opening a new service in any of the other care sectors. We will commence consultation immediately with state and territory governments, regulatory authorities and the sector to work through the policy detail to ensure that these measures are appropriately designed and targeted to meet the objective of removing the small number of bad providers while we continue to support growth in the sector and support families.

The early childhood education sector is important for children, it's an essential service for families and it's vital to our economy. The Albanese government will do everything in our power to protect children, to improve quality in the sector and to ensure that the workforce is supported. The Commonwealth is committed to do our bit with the levers that are available to us, and I expect state and territory governments to uphold their regulatory responsibilities in ensuring that providers and services in their jurisdictions comply with the National Quality Framework.

Last week, I wrote to the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority, ACECQA, and requested that they provide urgent advice to all education ministers on what can be done to strengthen the National Quality Framework. This advice will build on ACECQA's comprehensive child safety review, commissioned by the Minister for Education Jason Clare and myself in 2023. In February last year, education ministers agreed in principle to all recommendations under that review, acknowledging that some fall outside of the remit of education. All actions are on track, including the National Model Code and guidelines which were released last year to embed child-safe practices around the use of electronic devices.

From September this year, important regulatory changes will come into effect, including a reduction in notification timeframes for reporting incidences or allegations of physical or sexual abuse from seven days to 24 hours and a new requirement for services to have policies and procedures relating to the safe use of digital technologies including the use of CCTV. We'll continue to work with states and territories, the early childhood education sector and families as we undertake our significant reforms in this vital sector. This work will be informed by expert advice and the recent and comprehensive reviews that we have commissioned, including from the ACCC, the Productivity Commission and ACECQA.

Finally, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the wonderful, talented and dedicated professionals who educate and care for children right across Australia. Thank you for the important work that you do; you are changing lives. You are changing the lives of children every day, and nothing could be more important.

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